Today, there was a great assembly hosted by the Galileo Mena club. There was dances, speeches and poems that were all incredible. The end showing where they all were waving their flags proudly was a great sight to see.
The performances were great. There were a lot of cultural dances I’ve seen, I’ve seen some at my dads wedding this past summer. But, there were some I haven’t seen, and it was great to watch and learn about them. The people on stage were very prepared, and it all looked very organized. I noticed there were people invited from Lowell, from the Lowell Mena club. Im glad there is another Mena club in the district, I hope other schools have one. The people from Lowell were palestinian, so I was happy about that. I thought Mr Delgado’s dance moves were actually really good, and it seemed he had a great time up there.
For the first time in my life, I felt represented as an Arab at school. This assembly was the first time I could really feel involved in a cultural assembly. I remember growing up, us Arabs really had no representation. There was never an assembly like this for me in elementary or middle school. I heard this was the first ever MENA club assembly, and I really hope there will be more in the years to come here. It was great seeing people who have the same culture as me, be represented on a school wide stage. I loved every part of how it was showcased. From the music, to the dresses, to the dances we were represented extremely well onstage.
As a palestinian, this was my favorite assembly by far. Multiple people on that stage all showed support for us, and to be honest I was feeling very emotional about it. The poem about Palestine really touched my heart. Seeing the Palestine flag being waved with so much pride was honestly my favorite part. It served as a reminder to keep being proud of where I’m from, and to never shy away from it. Again, palestinian representation anywhere is very unlikely. Even in the media, we get mostly nothing. So to hear someone dedicate a poem to us was a great thing
This event will be great for the underclassmen. Unfortunately, I’m a senior so this is the only MENA event I will be attending, however I think the Arabs who are sophomore and juniors, will be very lucky to experience this event each year. I strongly encourage people to keep going to this event annually until they graduate. I say this because of how well we are represented up there, and I think the future generation being shown on having pride for ourselves will be great, and maybe next year, they will be on stage. It gives them a platform to share their culture, and most importantly share their voice.
I think people enjoyed the show a lot. I was not sitting with any friends who were of Arab descent, but they all had a blast. They said the music was really good, the dresses were really beautiful, and that the dances were fun to watch. I am very happy to hear these things, because in America, our culture is not the most well represented. We have a lot of negative stereotypes unfortunately. So I think this assembly was a great way to showcase our culture in a new and positive way, which I think definitely worked.
The students did a great job of showing us some history of the culture we have. One girl talked about the rich history of the Arab cultures. This included talking about where the alphabet came from, and where damascus came from. How before the wars, the streets of Syria were beautiful, full of life. They also talked about how all these cities like Syria were much better before these wars, which is.
In my 4 years at Galileo, this has been my favorite assembly by far. All I can say is that this was incredible, and I enjoyed every second. The Mena group did such an outstanding job representing the arabic culture. It was such a wonderful moment seeing all these countries come together. I especially enjoyed seeing all the Palestinians coming together and representing us.
